Then Claude and I headed to the open center of City Market to find a bench on which to sit as we drank that wonderful peach cider. It was really good. We would have loved to find a case and brought it home with us. The picture below is Claude in front of a flower cart at City Market.
Pretty soon it was time to head back to the Lady & Sons. It's only about a 3 or 4 block walk from City Market. We had been told to arrive at 10:45 and stand on the sidewalk across the street. Some people can follow directions and some people really are just not great at it. Claude and I were the first to line up across the street. A nice couple came in behind us. They were from Maryland. We assured them they should try the crabcakes at Pelican Pete's in Germantown, Maryland and then the Milano sandwich at the Italian Store in Arlington, Virginia.
Even with all the people massing around the front of the restaurant and NOT across the street, we were still called in the order we placed our seating requests. Claude and I got right in and had a table by the window on the first floor. There are actually 4 floors in The Lady & Sons. There is an elevator inside. The first 3 floors are restaurant seating and the 4th is a bar. I was so very happy with our little two person table by the window on the first floor. I got pictures of the first floor, the view from our window, and each plate of food they brought. I gave myself over to being a total tourist and enjoying each morsel. Who knows if we'll ever get back again.
We were given a menu when we made our seating arrangements that morning so we knew what we wanted to eat. One person is walking around with the bread. Each of us was given a biscuit that was butter, cheese and garlic and a cornmeal pancake piece of bread. The cornmeal pancake was called 'hoe cake'. It is called that because years ago they actually used the flat side of a 'hoe', put the batter on it, held it over the fire and cooked the bread on the 'hoe'. They give you syrup to eat it with if you choose. Both breads were delicious.
We ordered the fried green tomatos for an appetizer. They were served with roasted red peppers on top and a side of vidalia onion relish. Oh my heavens they were good. It just tickled this Southern girls heart.
Then came our main courses. Claude choice was a crab cake burger with fries. It was sooo thick he couldn't hardly get his hands around it. The fries were amazing. They sliced a potato in disc shapes. Then they breaded the potato and then they fried the potato. Claude said they were really good. I was wrestling with my own meal. I had a big crab cake with black beans and rice as the side. There was also a salsa like relish with fried collard greens. I grew up in the south. Turnip greens were something we ate often. So I was very interested in 'fried' collard greens. They were crispy crunchy in texture and even a little sweet tasting. Hmmm....I wonder if Paula adds sugar to the frying process. Claude and I pronounced our main courses perfect.
By now we are very glad we chose not to eat breakfast and save ourselves for lunch. We are also grateful we get to walk after eating. However, there was only little matter to determine first. I looked at my Big Guy and said, "Are you having dessert?" He looked at me and said, "I'm really full but it just seems like you should try dessert as well." Now, I'm the one with the sweet tooth. Claude does not have that curse upon him. So, if he says, we should try dessert, who can argue with that!! I ordered chocolate mousse pie and Claude ordered Key Lime Pie. Oh, if we only liked the same things, we could have shared a dessert. Each pie serving was 1/6th of a pie. Oh my!! But we did it and waddled ourselves right out the door and into Paula Deen's Store. Amazingly, we purchased nothing there. They had some plates on the wall but they were strictly decoration.
Back to City Market to find the horse drawn carriage ride. He had one leaving in about 10 minutes. We bought our tickets and wandered through the other street of shops that make up City Market. Then we were back to the carriage for a most enjoyable ride. There were two other couples. But the ticket seller guy knew I was taking lots of pictures so he seated us in the back seat first so I could have the best vantage point for pictures. I leaned over to Claude and asked him if he remembered the horse drawn carriage ride on Seinfeld. Hmmm.....none of that for us today.
We very much enjoyed the carriage tour. Lots of different styles of architecture were pointed out. Several of the squares (parks) throughout the city were driven by. Many historic homes were seen as well as churches. We even passed a cemetery. There was lots of hanging Spanish Moss in the trees. We were told that it is really not a moss at all. It is a relative of the pineapple!! I have to say I see absolutely unequivocably no resemblance whatsoever between Spanish Moss handing on a tree and a pineapple. But then, I'm not a scientist. Some of the streets are paved with bricks from buildings that have been torn down. Some of them are paved with stones. There is just a laid back charm to all of this Southern city.
I kept seeing bushes full of blossoms. These looked exactly like camelias to me. I love camelias. When I worked as a beautifican 50,000,000 years ago in Louisiana, one of my patrons would bring me camelias from her garden each weekly visit. Upon asking if these were camelias, I was told they are Japanese roses. I wonder if they would grow in Kentucky???
One of the notable homes is this one. It is the home of Juliet Gordon Lowe, the founder of the Girl Scouts. Each year I make a sizeable contribution in the purchase of LOTS of Girl Scout cookies. The tradition is a box of your favorite Girl Scout cookies on your birthday in our family. So I purchase all those and gift them on each persons birthday. As a matter of fact, this year's stash is already purchased, wrapped, and labeled so I can just get the next box for the next birthday. Come on July so I can have my box!! This picture is of the Juliet Gordon Lowe family home.
One of the other items of interest was something we learned years ago while touring old homes somewhere. There was at one point a tax on doors. As a result, people built these long windows that could be opened and entered and exited like a door but you didn't have to pay the tax on them.
- We saw a government building with 3 kinds of Georgia marble used to make the exterior.
- There was a home with statues of people in the front yard.
- We learned that the gardens were in the backs of the homes because it was not proper for a lady to be seen working in the garden and it was the lady of the house's responsibility to tend the garden.
- Several haunted homes were pointed out to us. Evidently there are a LOT of haunted homes and businesses in Savannah.
- In Franklin Square there is a monument with several people cast at the top. One of them is a Haitian boy. He came from Haiti and later his father would be the president of Haiti.
- We passed the first Black Baptist Church. It was actually a stop on the underground railroad.
- There was a dueling ground used many years ago. It is located right beside the cemetery so that the person who died in the duel could be tossed directly into the cemetery. The cemetery had lots of above ground sarcophaguses because of the high water table in this part of the country.
- Some of the streets of Historic Savannah are actually built right on top of cemeteries. This is because they had a highly contagious disease come through and they buried lots of people in mass graves. In order to not disturb the germ that caused the disease, they identified where these cemeteries were and just built right on top of them.
- There are lots of little squares or parks throughout the city. Many have fountains or monuments in the center. One of these was the scene for the shooting of Forrest Gump and a bench is labeled for being part of the movie.
- Liberty Street is a type of time marker. One side of it was basically built before 1812 and the other side after 1812.
- There was a red telephone booth beside a store. It was used in the TV show "Dr. Who".
- There is a vine growing over walls and some homes. It is 'Creeping Fig'. The roots of it do not dig into the brick and morter like ivy so it is the favored vine to cover things.
- The state food is 'grits'.
- I found the Temple Mickve Israel Synagogue an interesting bit of architecture. Looking at it I would think it was a Protestant church. It has spires, etc. that I think of when I think of a Protestant church building.
We thoroughly enjoyed this carriage ride. It gave a really good overview of the city. Our tour guide was a student at the local art academy. You could tell she loved being from and going to school in this love city.
Next we walked ourselves over a few blocks toward the Savannah River. We walked down Bay Street till we found a place we could get down to River Street and the dock. Bay street is at least 1 to 2 stories higher than River Street. This is a picture of the area where we found stairs down to the River Street level. There is a huge tall ship in the distance. This ship was built in South America as a personal yacht for a very wealthy family. The paved surface we would walk across after descending the stairs to get to the river is made of ballast rocks. Not a smooth surface. The 2nd picture is of the Charter House Restaurant in an old building on River Street.
I got some pictures of the Tall Ship and then we looked for our riverboat. The one we would take a tour on is the Georgia Queen.
The Georgia Queen has 3 decks. the first deck is totally enclosed and really used for dinners. We were free to use the 2nd and 3rd decks. The 2nd deck is partially enclosed. We headed to the 3rd deck which is all open air. We found seats at the back. We ended up walking all over this deck during the tour, as did most of the guests.
From the Georgia Queen we had a great view of this section of River Street. This area is the old Cotton Exchange. The buildings were used to store and bale the cotton. It was on the dock so that it could be shipped to other parts of the country and the world. Savannah was a very busy place along River Street during the big days of cotton there. A lot of the buildings have little balconies on them. I can imagine the cotton barons having offices behind those balconies. Then them stepping out on them to see how things were going with the ships and the arrival and disbursement of the cotton.
There are two riverboats and another little tug-like boat names the Juliet Gordon Lowe. This tug-like boat is a water taxi from River Street across the Savannah River to the convention center and the Westin Hotel.
There was an old man singing with a bucket in front of him for donations. He would walk up and down that area of the dock and stop tourists and tell them he was the 'host' for the dock. Then he would start to sing to them in the hopes they would put something in his bucket. His song of choice was 'Amazing Grace'. He had a full rich voice and it was pleasant to listen to him sing. After the river tour he was still on that dock but he had finally changed songs.
The picture below is of the Cotton Exchange buildings. I took many pictures of these buildings. They are just big old warehouses, several stories high. Now they house shops and restaurants. It is truly nice that these buildings are kept restored and used today. As you look at this picture, if you were to continue to your right you would see a gold domed building. That is the City Hall of Savannah. Next to it is a building that comes to the edge of the dock. In fact, there is an open tunnel through the bottom floor so that River Street can go through the building. That building in the Hyatt Hotel. They have a prime spot on this River. Everything is just in walking distance from here. To the right of the Hyatt is the portion of the dock we walked down with the tall ship. The dock area is bordered by brick steps and planters that mirror the bricks of the Cotton Exchange buildings. Then there is River Street that is made of brick with a track running down the middle. It is just a lovely place to sit and enjoy the outdoors.
Now our tour begins and we head up the Savannah River. We would go under the Talmadge Memorial Bridge. When we visit Panama and took a ride in the Panama Canal through 3 of the sets of western locks, there was a bridge that looked a lot like this one. There is also only that looks like it in Boston. They are all very pretty bridges. This bridge is a newer version. The 2nd pictures shows the support concrete pillars from the older bridge. It was just too short to handle the huge ocean shipping vessels that navigate this river.
This tour was an entirely different focus than the carriage tour. It gave us a view of the business side of Savannah. We passed the dock where the crates can be loaded and unloaded to huge ships. We passed the scrap metal portion of the dock. Here tons of scrap metal are shredded and put in piles. There are two piles of shredded metal on this dock and a big bulldozer was pushing the shavings back into their piles. It really looked like enormous piles of mulch. (See next picture) Then we passed the place where these enormous ships fill up with gas. There was a row of big coiled rubber pipes that are their gas hoses. We were told that filling one of these ships means a bill of millions of dollars for fuel. We also passed a smaller open shed covered section of the dock with an enclosed building next to it as big as the open shed. To the left of these were smaller buildings with curved roofs. This area was for making really expensive yachts. One of the crew told me there was one in the enclosed building they were building right now. The curved roof buildings were for making the parts to go inside like instrument panels, paneled walls, counters, etc. We passed a big set of silos (see picture below). Claude and I were very surprised to learn they stored Georgia clay in these silos. Then the dried clay powdered is pumped out of the silos into ships. Georgia clay is used for everything from very fine china to the shiney surface you have on nice magazines to...are you ready...Kaopectate!!! Just ponder that for a moment. The final building pointed out to us was a paper mill (see picture below). Now I grew up in Louisiana and in Springhill we had a paper mill. Whenever we had to drive past the little town I ached for the people that lived and worked there. The odor was awful. So as we were told this building was a papermill I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of foul odor in the air. The last picture in this series in just one of the many, many huge ships traveling the Savannah River. Please note that little tug boat beside it. I love tug boats. In their quiet, unassuming way they carry on the hard work in the harbor areas. I think there are great lessons we can learn from tug boats. The crew member I was talking with at this point said they are sometimes leaving a pilot off to pilot the huge ocean vessel up or down the river. He said the pilot are paid enormous amounts of money to do very little. He told me that even if that pilot made an error and the ship crashed into something it shouldn't, the ship's captain is the one who would be responsible even though he had no control over the ship. I told him that when we were in Alaska we saw this a lot. If you were in Canadian waters on the inside passage, they would bring (on a tug boat) the pilot allowed to pilot a ship in these waters to the cruise ship and drop him off or pick him up. I explained that in the Inside Passage there are places the water is very rough because of the ocean currents and it was often an interesting thing to find just the right moment for the pilot to jump off the tug boat and into the loading deck of the cruise ship. Then the crew member told me to look at the yellow flag on one of the ocean ships. He explained that meant the ship was still in quaranteen. It had not cleared customs and until the yellow flag came down, others could not enter or leave that vessel.
The Georgia Queen turned around in the river and headed back to dock. It was a very interesting tour of a different side of Savannah. We left the Georgia Queen and crossed River Street to the candy store. They had just made taffy and some pecan pralines. I definitely took my sample of the pecan pralines. We purchased some glazed pecans, peach cookies and pecan/milk chocolate clusters for me and almond/milk chocolate clusters for Claude. We were set for our ride back to Tybee Island. But first Claude drove me back into Historic Savannah to take pictures of the Temple Mickve Israel Synagogue. Then we found Highway 80 and headed back to Tybee.
One of the most pleasing scenes to me on the islands was the sea oat grass (see picture below). It grows in huge open fields with channels of water through them. People who live on these islands build very long wooden walkways out to the channels of water where they have boats. These walkways are high and have steps down to the water level. This seems to because of tides. Sometimes the channels had precious little water in them and others they were flowing quite well. I truly enjoyed looking at these fields of sea oat grass. Just found them very soothing and relaxing to look at. Even their color was pleasant. And those long wooden paths to the docks amazed me. As we were driving back to Tybee Island there was a big ocean vessel of some kind headed up the Savannah River from the Atlantic Ocean (see picture below). On this side of Highway 80 was a road but no cars drove on it. Later we learned that originally you only got to Tybee Island by boat or the railroad. The road along Highway 80 was the old railroad track path. It has been turned into a sandy walking path. There are picnic tables every so often. It was just really a neat feature.
We got back to our hotel room and deposited all our treasures from our day. Then we headed to the shore to walk along the beach. Our hotel was on the beach almost. The only thing that separated us was a public parking lot. We had a lovely walk over the dunes and down to the end of the island. The first picture is of the Tybee Pier. There were a group of young boys flying a kite and daring each other to get into the water. As we walked the boardwalk over the dunes I noticed the seagull footprints in the sand (see picture below). There was a family walking toward us on the beach. They had a little boy, maybe 3 years old, holding his pants up so he could walk in the stream of water left by the tide. It just felt way to cold but he was happy as he could be. Further down past the pier was a father playing with his two sons. One looked about 5 and the other about 3. He had a ball he would toss and they would run to see who could catch it first. They never caught it in the air. It would hit the ground and the breeze would carry it along. One breeze sent it rolling to the stream left by the tide. The father was yelling, "Don't get in the water!!" over and over. The oldest got there first and stood at the edge of the water and reached in to get that ball. The little brother got there and headed straight into the water. Claude and I chuckled and the father just shook his head. There was a seagull bathing in the water as the waves hit the shore. As the stream left by the tide flowed down to some rocks piles to prevent erosion we found where some enterprising soul has built walls in a snake shape in the stream to channel the water. We turned to walk back toward our hotel when I had a great idea!! I took a picture of Claude and I at the beach (see below). My poor hubby thought I was really silly taking that picture. But I think it shall be one of my favorites of all time. As we approached the Tybee Pier again I found a photo moment with a big ocean vessel seen between the legs of the pier (see below). At one point I noticed that ALL of the seagulls were standing on the shore facing the same direction. It seemed odd to me and I mentioned it to my very clever hubby. His response..."If they turn the other way it will blow their feathers up!" Such silliness. We finished our walk by sitting in these wonderful swings they make out of huge railroad tie sized pieces of lumber. They each have a swing like a porch swing in them. They are all placed at the edge of the dunes facing the ocean. How pleasant to sit and swing together and enjoy the beauty of this earth. When I started to chill we headed back to the room.
Later in the evening I peeked out on our hotel balcony. The sun was setting on the other side of Tybee Island but the colors were still magnificent on the ocean side of the island. Time to eat those pecan and almond/chocolate clusters.
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